This sounds a bit fishy

[ringo747]

Just received the following email from a family friend who I run a small website for.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would you be able to provide me with the following information:

- File Transfer Protocol details i.e. username & password

I have also been asked for my URL address or Control Panel that is also used - is this my web address?

I was contacted by a Co. that gave me 50% discount that would put me on the front page of the main search engines.

Many thanks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why on earth would a 3rd party want this kind of info? I cant see how this can be genuine. I'm very wary of these companies that offer high page ranking. Surely it doesn't make any odds to your page rank if you pay someone or not?

 

[tom_e]

As soon as some random people start asking for username and passwords for anything its pretty much a scam

 

[ringo747]

Its just as well I look after things for this woman as she wouldn't think twice about giving passwords out. Luckily she didn't know what FTP was or what the password would be.

I take it anything advertising a high page rank isn't too trustworthy?

 

[Sagalout]

it's probably legit. SEO companies often want FTP access to directly edit the HTML pages title tags and copy. Whether they are any good who knows - many of them just spam the pages with loads of keywords under the main site.

It's amusing if you develop in php, especially if you use a framework, as the amount of times the seo company break a page or can't even find the right code to edit can be quite profitable!

 

[radderfire]

Why on earth would a 3rd party want this kind of info? I cant see how this can be genuine. I'm very wary of these companies that offer high page ranking. Surely it doesn't make any odds to your page rank if you pay someone or not?

They'd want the ftp info so they could make changes to the page for SEO purposes, change the meta tags etc.

I also think most of the time these supposed SEO companies aren't worth the money, you are better off working out SEO for yourself and providing the service to her yourself.

Rgds

 

[ringo747]

yeah i think i have done enough in the code myself without someone else rejigging it slightly. Its just quite a task to convince her that these guys are purely interested in money only. Especially when I can't guarantee a first page ranking myself.

 

[ringo747]

Just to follow up on this it sounds like she has already signed up with these guys.

http://www.firstsearchconsultancy.co.uk/

Anyone heard of them or dealt with them? I don't particularly want to give them access to the web control panel where they can access mails and everything. Their website looks complete rubbish and there is very little mention about SEO and no reviews or customer testimonials which worries me slightly.

Edit: Looked at some of the sites they claim to have designed. They look naff and when you run them through w3c they have hundreds of errors. Weird setup that.